whisky barrel shavings

[hic52]

I have just been given some whisky barrel shavings from a distillery and was wondering, do I need to add these just to 40% spirit or do I add a whisky flavour and add the shavings to enhance the flavour and how much weight to quantity.
Ive been trying something a bit different lately as have found the whisky flavourings a bit false so have tried 20% in quantity genuine whisky, in my case teachers to neutral spirit and it does taste of teachers whisky. Less than 20% just tastes like weak whisky.
Back to the shavings though, they do have a slight smell of whisky.

[Jimmy]

Either or - if you use them with essence, just use less. It\'s all a matter of personal preference, but I have used a good handful of Jack Daniels barbeque chips (the pieces are roughly the size of a small matchbox, perhaps 5 of these and some smaller bits) in a 1 litre glass jar, left for a month or two with neutral spirit, with excellent results.

[hic52]

Just to report back - the shavings have given the spirit a nice mellow taste, read on the net that putting the jar in the freezer overnight and during the day leaving it out makes the process of ageing much quicker, am on the 5th day now and the colour has changed dramatically, probably put a little too much in (100g) to 75cl but wow what a nice colour and couldn\'t resist having a sneaky taste and it has a nice mellow taste.

Am gonna continue for about 2 weeks then remove the wood and let it age for a couple of months and see what happens then.

[Frank]

I\'ve got about 75g of tennessee bourbon chips (small bits manly) soaking in 3.3 litres of spirit. After maybe a fortnight I was going to filter then add 2 bourbon and 1 whiskey flavourings (separately of course) as per the \'1 sachet to 1.125l spirit\' recommendation on the sachets. So.... will this most likely make the finished product too flavoured/strong etc? If so, what\'s the suggestions re mixing said soaked spirit to added flavours please?

[Frank]

Further to the previous email...Jimmy I know you wrote \"Either or - if you use them with essence, just use less\" but I\'m not sure if you meant less shavings or less soaked spirit or less essence or some combination thereof (entirely due to my learner\'s status I\'m sure).